PGA Ownership Report: Valspar Championship

by Sean O'Donnell (hokie2009) Last Updated 2017-03-13 19:10:29

Here’s the data for this week’s $3 Birdie at the Valspar!

Full field ownerships (for the $3, the $33, and cash games) can be found here!

And we have a co-ownerships matrix that shows who the highest owned pairs of golfers were in this week’s $3 Birdie:

We’ve got a lot of the big names out of the way, and a lot of guys who have played a lot of rounds recently – but we know that an ownership report is never without surprises. Let’s see who everyone took!

Gary Woodland (34% GPP, 56% Cash) – My man! I kind of thought he’d be the most popular guy, given his super stellar recent form and the feeling that he’s really “belonging” in doing so, everyone’s waiting for him to break through and stay there, and nobody wants to be sitting on the sidelines when it happens. For less than $9,000 there was very little avoiding him this week in my mind, and the field agreed! It is what it is, I think anyone who took him wasn’t expecting him to be unpopular, but we still took him anyway. I love this guy and I’m glad that others can see it, too.

Jason Dufner (24% GPP, 74% Cash) DUFFMAN! OH YEAH! (Okay I know that joke has been made a billion and a half times by now but I haven’t written about him in a long time so let me enjoy it … Dufner is a fickle mistress, somewhat overcoming his reputation for being an IMPOSSIBLY bad putter and a torture for DFS fans who watch shottracker everywhere. The price was just too low this week for his track record, eight straight top 25s and four of his last five events with top 25s – I said we couldn’t avoid Woodland this week but as you can see with this EPIC cash game ownership – Dufner was the REAL can’t-miss guy in cash games, if you chose to play. It all feels right. We’ll see if he can keep it up! The interesting thing to me is that you could see a deliberate avoidance of him in GPP – I mean he’s still in the top five highest owned but I think many made the choice of absoluting having him in cash games and absolutely NOT having him in GPPs. A choice I can’t disagree with. But it’s a hard one to swallow if he does REALLY well or REALLY bad.

Henrik Stenson (30% GPP, 30% Cash) – This is kind of the opposite ownership profile of Dufner. Stenson broke everyone’s hearts last week and I think most DFSers are seasoned enough to not overeact to that BUT … we’re going to react. What I see here is an acknowledgement that he could very easily have been the most expensive guy in the field but isn’t and that if he’s healthy he’s probably as likely or more likely to win than anyone going in … but some serious trust issues… also a reluctance to pay top dollar in cash games when everyone trends towards a more balanced lineup – skip Stenson and combine Dufner and Woodland and Howell or something like that in cash games.

Bill Haas (26% GPP, 51% Cash) – Buoyed by his second place finish (in a playoff) last year? Haas is a guy who randomly pops up as a fan favorite, and I don’t generally see it. He seems to kind of had his career on cruise control since DFS has gotten really popular. But very steady recently. Not exactly cheap, though. I’ll be totally honest – I don’t get it. So cue up a top five finish.!

Charl Schwartzel (5% GPP, 0.5% Cash) – Charl got hit on the wrist in the pro-am and withdrew, so nobody took him! I was really curious to see where he was going to end up, coming in kind of mediocre form but coming off a big win here last year … but of course this ownership is totally reflective of the late news. Anyway, as of this writing he’s playing, and under par! A huge boon for those who chose to stay with him in their contests. The golf injury news situation is a really tough thing to gauge, and this is no exception. Part of the fun.

Everyone’s made their choices, so now let’s hope for the best. See you guys next week!